How to work in JIRA

In the software development life cycle a very important role is played by the project management systems. There are a lot of them, however in this article we will look through the work in one of the most popular ones – Jira.

Jira is a bug tracking system that is created for team members' communication as well as  project management. This system was developed by Atlassian in 2002.

Jira has a very wide functionality that is not that easy to understand by an inexperienced user. Below, we will look through the simple elements and functions that are often used on projects.

How to create a project

Jira allows the users to create their own project, set it and follow the processes of the task life cycle till its end. These settings can help the administrator to identify the actions and activities provided for different users. 

In order to create the project, one must click the main page icon in the left corner and then Project - Create project. 

Next, one must choose a project template. The "Software development" project template should be selected.

In our case, we chose Scrum and the Company-managed project type.

After creating the project it needs to create the board where the whole process of work will be seen. On the board can be seen the tasks of one or several projects. They are displayed in the columns that show the process of work of the team. With the help of a board the team can navigate through the work and tasks that have already been started, in progress and finished. 

How to create a Scrum or Kanban board

To create a Scrum or a Kanban board one must open the search for all boards in the «Planning» block and click «Create board».

Choose the type of Kanban / Scrum board.

In spite of the boards being similar there is a difference between them in the strategies to manage the projects according to the Agile methodology. The Kanban methodologies presuppose cyclical and high mobility at the same time when Scrum is based on short structured sprints.

Scrum board

Kanban board

Types of tickets, their meanings and usages

Tasks created in Jira are called an issue.

Issue is a rather flexible term, it can be anything: a bug report, an actual task to improve the development process, requests from the forms that must be answered.

Each issue corresponds to the separate part of work that must be done. The issue is assigned the special ID that simplifies its search. 

To make the management more optimized, in Jira there are 5 types of issues:

1. Epic;
2. Story;
3. Тask;
4. Sub-task;
5. Bug.

Epic –  a big task that will be done in several sprints. 

For instance, the «Create the form A for the side N» epic, to the tasks of which contain the creation of the design, research over the scructure if the form, development of the form, analytics, etc. This task is very voluminous, so the number of participants will be large. The epic will be divided into parts, which will describe the detailed steps to solve the problem. These parts are called «Story».

Story – a part of an epic team that can solve such a task for one sprint. 

History describes the functional (it’s work) from the point of view of the end user. For example, in continuation of the «Create the form A for the side N» epic, next history points can be highlighted:

• As a user, one can fill and send the order form on the site.
• As an UX designer, one can develop a convenient form for the needy user and so on.

This is done for the purpose of making the part of work more grouped and understandable.

Тask – a technical task of one member of a team. 

As a rule, the technical tasks are not connected to the team work, however they are needed for the successful completion of epics. For example, create a repository for the project, configure the test environment, etc. 

Тask can be evaluated in hours or subtasks can be created because there is not always the ability to identify the amount of time needed for a specific task. 

Sub-task – a part of a history or the task that describes the minimal amount of the work for the member of the team. 

Subtasks simplify the process of the control over the work performance and allow to define the labor costs. The statuses that display the work done, what is still in process and what are not yet started. The subtasks are created by the members of the team personally in the process of planning the work for the next sprint.

Bug – a task that describes the error in the system. The task of which is the fixation of the defects found that will be analyzed and fixed afterwards. 

Creation of labels, components and what are they used for

To group the tasks according to the topic in Jira the labels and components are created.

In order to start the work with components, they must be created (by the Jira administrator or the project manager).

Components – an analogue of categories. It allows one to divide the volumes of work into parts. For example, work on an application can be divided into components such as terms of reference, documentation, server, and so on.

Labels can be added during the creation of the task in task creation,

as well as to the already created task.

Filtering by labels and components

In order to find the task with certain labels and components, one must use the search and choose the labels and components in the filter.

Choosing the labels and components:

Choosing the specific label (or a component):

Creation, assignment tasks on the performer

In order to create the new task it is needed to click the «Create» button on the top tab.

The modal window of the task creation will open:

The following points are ought to be specified during the creation of the task:

• Project to which the task belongs to. By default the task is created in the project that was opened or in the project in which the previous task was created;
• Issue Type must be chosen from the 5 types presented;
• Summary must be short and understandable; 
• Reporter the person who has created the task.

Additional fields include:

• Priority field. The field that shows the urgency to finish the task. By default, all tasks are created with the Medium priority, for the urgent task the High or Highest. The highest is called Blocker and must be used in cases when something important in the software (the payment is not processed, the items are not added to the cart) is broken. If the task is not urgent, the priority Low or Lowest is applied.
• Components field allows to pin the task to the corresponding component (look above);
• Assignee field shows the member of the team that must do the task; 
• Description field has the description of the task;
• Labels field provides the already created or new label (look above);
• Attachment field allows one to attach the files to the issue. 
• Linked issues field allows to choose the issue related to the task. For the ordinary link of the issue to another, the «relates to» type is chosen;
• Epic Link field shows the link to the epic (look above).

Creation of the Workflow of the bug in Jira

The working process in JIRA is the set of statuses and transitions that the task passes through its workflow. It can have 5 main stages:

• Open Issue;
• Resolved;
• In Progress Issue;
• ReOpened Issue;
• Close Issue.

The separate lifecycle can be created for each project in Jira. However for the creation or the expansion of such flow one must login to the system as an Administrator with the global right to create and edit the workflow.

As the process of software development is flexible and variable, different statuses and types of transfers will be needed for the teams and products. Often, there is a manual way of adding new statuses to tickets in most of the bug tracking systems.

One can choose not only the name of the status but also the color to mark its «category» (the status of the tickets that are ready for work, in the process and the finished ones). For further convenience, download the icon to highlight it among other statuses. 

In order to add the new status, it is needed to:

1. Login as an administrator to JIRA.
2. Go to the «Statuses» page, choosing Cog Icon> Issues > and find Statuses on the right in the «Issue Attributes» category.

Click the «Add Status» button, write the name, description and category of the status that must be added.

Then the new status must be added to the Workflow:

1. Click Cog Icon>Issues> find Workflow in the «Workflow» сategory;
2. Click the «Edit» link in Workflow where the status must be added;
3. Click the «Add Status» button, to define the previous statuses. Choose the «Revising» status and «Add» button;

4. Click the «Reviewing status» on any unit and move it to the «Revising status» unit to create the transfer. The «Add Transition» window will appear;

5. When you have finished editing Workflow, you need to publish a draft or activate the workflow.

Сreating your own Workflow, you need to take into account parameters such as:

• the size of the project and team;
• the length of the project;
• the work experience with this team and the work experience in general. 

Passing the lifecycle of the ticket

After creating a task and activating Workflow, the life cycle begins.

Let us consider the example of the life cycle shown in the figure.

All new tasks have the «Backlog» status. Tasks in this status need to be clarified in terms of priority, deadlines, executor, etc.

After assigning a task to an executor and adding complete information about the deadline, the «Selected for work» or «In progress» statuses are assigned if work on the task has been started.

After completing this task, it is assigned the «Ready for review» status.

After the verification phase, there may be two scenarios, the first one — the «Done» status is assigned to the task, which means that all work is done, or the task is reopened with the «Reopened» status and returned to work with the «In progress» status. This is possible if the task requires further clarifications or is not sufficiently implemented, contains errors or discrepancies. A completed task with «Done» status can also be reviewed and returned to work with «In progress» status if new details have been added to pass it, etc. Tasks that were implemented according to the requirements, solved in the process, lost relevance or were canceled by the customer have the final «Archived» status.

On any project, navigation of tasks is one of the important components of success. As the project grows, it becomes more and more difficult to understand the flow of priority tasks, so it is important to find a methodology that can simplify the management process and help participants navigate the tasks.